General Info

Hanoi moves towards green metropolis

Vietnam ’s capital city is working on a plan that will zone off 70 percent of its natural territory for tree and water space by 2050 to become a green, civilised and modern city.

Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Dinh Toan said at the presentation of the draft scheme on March 18 that it aimed to provide the best living environment including quality entertainment services.

The plan will also serve the capital’s long-term strategy to turn itself into an international metropolis of tourism and business—first in the region, and then in the world, Toan added.

The Director of the Rural and Urban Planning and Architect Institute, Ngo Trung Hai, explained that the green system includes municipal rivers and lakes, the natural reserves of Ba Vi, Huong Tich and Soc Son mountains, productive agricultural areas and traditional craft villages, and cultural relics sites.

The scheme calls for establising a green corridor along the Day, Tich and Ca Lo rivers in an effort to control the rampant urbanisation of nuclear and satellite cities.

The green corridor will have a north south road and three ecological townships.

The scheme will be regularly updated with Hanoi ’s latest statistics such as a recent calculation of Hanoi ’s population that shows a 20 percent reduction over the previous forecast for 2050.

More specifically, the capital plans to keep its population at or below 9.1 million by 2030, which will fluctuate between 10.5 and 10.7 million by 2050.

The population density in the four old inner precincts will be reduced from current 33,300 people/ sq. k. to 23,000 by 2050.

Municipal People’s Committee Chairman Nguyen The Thao asked planning designers to consider architectural options that can attract citizens from the centre of Hanoi to satellite cities.

Planning designers consist of the consultant PPJ, a joint venture of Perkino Eastman from the US , Posco E & C and Jina of the Republic of Korea , the Rural and Urban Planning and Architecture Institute under the Ministry of Construction and the Hanoi Urban Planning Institute./.